LiDaoyuan Water writer plumbs new depths
3 min readLi Daoyuan was a renowned geographer and essayist during the Northern Wei Dynasty（386-534 AD）.Ever since its publication，his”Shui Jing Zhu，”or”Commentary on the Wa-terways Classic，”has been regarded as one of the most com-prehensive and highly researched books about rivers，canals and streams in ancient China.
Li became interested in rivers，mountains and natural scenery when he was a child.Born into an official’s family，Li spent his childhood in a village surrounded by gorgeous scenes in today’s Hebei Province in northern China.
A small river with pristine water flowed in front of the village and almost every day, Li went to play around the river with his friends.
One year, the river dried up during a devastating drought.
Li felt very sad and asked his mother,”Where did all the water go?”His mother told him that the water was drunk dry by a river god. The half-baked story didn’t satisfy the boy’s curiosi-ty, instead it kindled his resolve to find out the truth by himself someday.
As a teenager, Li got the opportunity to travel to many places with his father, who was a regional official. Often, he was fascinated by the beautiful waters and mountains wherever he visited.
When he was an adult, Li was appointed as a local offi-cial in today’s Shanxi, He’ nan and Hebei provinces. Taking advantage of such opportunities, Li did a lot of investigation of the local canals, rivers, streams, mountains and other geologi-cal features there. And wherever he visited, he would talk tolocal elders to record their comments on the changes of the natural environment.
During his lifetime, Li traveled to most parts of northern, central and eastern China. And the rich data he had collectedduring such travels had prepared him for future research and for writing his master work, namely,”Commentary on Water-ways Classic.”
In addition to field investigation, Li studied a lot of an-cient and contemporary literature and books on geography. He spent a lot of time on classics such as “Shan Hai Jing,”or “Mountain and Sea Classics,”and “Shui Jing,”or “Waterways Classic.”
The latter was compiled by Sang Qin during the Three Kingdoms Period (220-280 AD). However, the book recorded only 137 rivers across the country in only about 10,000 Chi-nese characters.
Li believed that the book was incomprehensive and lacked many necessary details. Also, compared with the ge-ographical phenomena that he had observed during his travels to many places around the country, things had changed over time. For instance, many waterways had already changed their courses and some canals had already fallen into disuse.
Therefore, Li decided to update and expand the contents of the original”Waterways Classics”by writing a 40-volumecommentary in more than 300,000 Chinese characters and by quoting extensively from the data he had collected from field investigation and from more than 430 books that he had ardu-ously studied.
In addition to comprehensive and faithful descriptions of 1,252 rivers in various parts of the country, Li incorporatedinto his book detailed depictions of soil, vegetation, climate and hydrology as well as economic, human and environmental conditions in regions along those waterways.
As an official, Li won great support from the public for his uprightness, clean government and unremitting fight against crime. But he was hated by some venal peers. In 527 AD, he together with his brother and two sons was assassinated by a rebel official in northwestern China.
